North Carolina resident allegedly received $100 to smuggle bullets to Mexico

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer stands near an accordion wire at the Progreso, Texas, port of entry.

EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A North Carolina resident and two South Texas men face federal charges in connection with failed attempts to smuggle ammunition and cash into Mexico.

José Luis Torres, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was arrested at the Progreso, Texas, port of entry on June 3 after Mexican soldiers denied him entry into Mexico while he was driving his Cadillac CTS. niece with household appliances and several other boxes in the trunk.

His sudden return to American soil in a vehicle registered in North Carolina aroused the suspicions of Customs and Border Protection agents. They sent him to a secondary inspection area where he told an officer he had four boxes of ammunition of varying calibers in the trunk, according to documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Torres told CBP that her niece's boyfriend placed the boxes there. But when he was turned over to Homeland Security agents, he reportedly said he was paid $100 to deliver the 350 bales to Mexico, along with the car and appliances.

He faces up to 10 years in prison for knowingly and illegally attempting to export goods from the United States.

In another case, CBP arrested two South Texas men in a vehicle heading south into Mexico on the Brownsville and Matamoros International Bridge in Cameron County, Texas.

A criminal complaint filed June 7 alleges that a CBP officer asked Jesus Alejandro Soto and Jose Luis Vega if they were carrying firearms, ammunition or more than $10,000 in cash and said they were not.

An inspection of the vehicle, however, revealed 200 rounds of .380 caliber ammunition and several vacuum-sealed plastic bags containing $159,531 hidden inside the speaker system panels, according to court records.

In interviews with HSI agents, Vega allegedly said he was aware of the money and ammunition in the vehicle and that he would be paid 1 percent ($1,595) of the money once he allegedly delivered it to an anonymous party in Mexico. The complaint says Soto also allegedly admitted to taking more than $10,000 in cash out of the country without declaring it and doing so for profit.

Vega and Soto each face one count of conspiring to knowingly and illegally export goods from the United States and unlawfully attempting to transport currency over $10,000 out of the United States.

The men were scheduled to appear at a June 12 detention hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Karen Betancourt in Brownsville.